Confessions of a Postdoc
Aug 27, 2026 · 36 min · 11 segments
Send us Fan Mail It’s Dr, actually!! In this month’s episode, Helen and Kate are joined by Dr Haydn Farrelly who has just started his first…
- Show signals
- Audience≈179 followers
Aug 27, 2026 · 36 min · 11 segments
Send us Fan Mail It’s Dr, actually!! In this month’s episode, Helen and Kate are joined by Dr Haydn Farrelly who has just started his first…
Haydn FarrellyGuest
Helen NuttallHost
Kate SladeHost
Because Hayden, to me, has always been like... really curious and bright and motivated to answer you know understand and answer questions define questions and figure out the answers so I think as a PhD student you probably had like quite an independent experience in a sense because you were very self-motivated you're very driven very intellectually curious so I imagine that set you up quite well for your current position.
So tell us, because this is the first time we've seen you in person since you've been to Stockholm.
I mean, like you said about independence, independence is a really important part of it because you no longer have the thesis looming over your head.
Because as a PhD student, of course, you do work independently and you are in charge of your own projects, but you ultimately have this one goal to aim towards at the end, which is that you have to produce this thesis and all of your work has to contribute towards that.
You have an end date when you have to be finished by, but you don't necessarily have an overarching goal unless you set yourself one.
So yeah, being sort of curious, driven by questions is really important for making sure you don't just sort of come up with one experiment, do that and then sort of disappear at the end of the postdoc.
And it's probably worth clarifying that you're doing more of a fellowship type postdoc as opposed to how, for example, you were working on a grant where there are deliverables kind of on the grant.
And I'm sure there are deliverables in your fellowship plan, but you're not working like with a PI who's won the grant.
And as part of the application, I had to write a research proposal just for one study, one sort of study that would take up two years worth of time.
And then essentially, if you get the position, you are free then for two years to come in and just work towards completing the research project that you propose.
Of course, another part of that is, of course, writing grants, you know, trying to motivate future studies as well.
Because Hayden, to me, has always been like... really curious and bright and motivated to answer you know understand and answer questions define questions and figure out the answers so I think as a PhD student you probably had like quite an independent experience in a sense because you were very self-motivated you're very driven very intellectually curious so I imagine that set you up quite well for your current position.
So tell us, because this is the first time we've seen you in person since you've been to Stockholm.
I mean, like you said about independence, independence is a really important part of it because you no longer have the thesis looming over your head.
Because as a PhD student, of course, you do work independently and you are in charge of your own projects, but you ultimately have this one goal to aim towards at the end, which is that you have to produce this thesis and all of your work has to contribute towards that.
You have an end date when you have to be finished by, but you don't necessarily have an overarching goal unless you set yourself one.
So yeah, being sort of curious, driven by questions is really important for making sure you don't just sort of come up with one experiment, do that and then sort of disappear at the end of the postdoc.
And it's probably worth clarifying that you're doing more of a fellowship type postdoc as opposed to how, for example, you were working on a grant where there are deliverables kind of on the grant.
And I'm sure there are deliverables in your fellowship plan, but you're not working like with a PI who's won the grant.
And as part of the application, I had to write a research proposal just for one study, one sort of study that would take up two years worth of time.
And then essentially, if you get the position, you are free then for two years to come in and just work towards completing the research project that you propose.
Of course, another part of that is, of course, writing grants, you know, trying to motivate future studies as well.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
